Post by Teddy Bear on Feb 17, 2011 23:17:58 GMT
As a follow on to one of the posts here
Why it's time to call time on Question Time
By Richard Littlejohn
Last updated at 9:23 PM on 17th February 2011
There’s a simple solution to the angst over transferring production of Question Time to Glasgow: scrap the show altogether.
Forget the cost of upheaval and the perverse, bureaucratic idiocy of shifting what is supposed to be the BBC’s flagship political programme hundreds of miles away from Parliament.
Sadly, the plain truth is that Question Time should be put out of its misery. It is a relic of a more serious age, a carthorse in a cyberspace world. Every attempt to make it more ‘relevant’ only succeeds in making it look more ridiculous.
The show has been running for 32 years and is a prime candidate for euthanasia. And, no, this isn’t a conclusion I’ve reached lightly. Over the past 15 years, I’ve appeared on Question Time at fairly regular intervals.
It was always a privilege and occasionally a pleasure, such as the time I got to lock horns with the agitprop film-maker Michael Moore in Miami before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. These days when they ring up to invite me back, frankly I can’t be bothered. Why would I want to be on a show I hardly ever watch any more?
The rot started to set in when they increased the number of panellists and introduced the obligatory electronic interactive gimmicks.
David Dimbleby spends as much time reading out Twitter, Facebook and email addresses as he does taking questions. Debates have descended into soundbites.
Where once you got three politicians from the main parties, plus a journalist, industrialist or tame member of the Great and Good, now you are as likely to be confronted with a vacuous pop star or right-on comedian.
Weary format: Show has lost its edge - and controversially invited BNP leader Nick Griffin on last year
Weary format: Show has lost its edge - and controversially invited BNP leader Nick Griffin on last year
For me, Question Time lost all credibility when it wheeled out that ludicrous ‘cutting edge’ artist dressed as Little Bo Peep. Say what you like about Ken Livingstone, he never turned up in a Little Red Riding Hood costume.
Nowadays, the programme is as much about the audience as the panel. Question Time makes great play of coming from a different town or city every week, allegedly to celebrate the ‘diversity’ of the nation.
But each week, the studio audience looks exactly the same. At the end of every edition, Dimbleby invites viewers at home to apply for tickets for future shows. Trust me: don’t waste your time, particularly if you happen to be a Daily Mail reader.
The audience is always the same noxious, inarticulate blend of Left-wing local government activists, NHS malcontents, trades union officials, spotty students and women in headscarves. Occasionally, they throw in a couple of comedy Tories with dandruff, for the rest of the crowd to boo.
Last time I was on the programme, it came from Stevenage, Herts, where 93 per cent of the population is white, and which elected a Conservative MP in 2010 with 41.4 per cent of the vote.
Yet the audience looked as if it had been bussed in from central casting, carefully selected to reflect the BBC’s view of what Britain should look like. If 41.4 per cent of that audience were Conservative voters, they did a damn good job of disguising it.
I took one look at them and thought to myself: if this is a true representation of the people of Stevenage, then we really are all going to hell in a handcart.
Question Time pretends to be scrupulously impartial. But two editions in particular give the lie to this fiction. The first was the disgraceful episode two days after 9/11, which featured a baying, hate-filled mob insisting that America asked for it.
The second was the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin. I’m all for giving the BNP a good kicking, but this was a licence fee-funded lynching, with Dimbleby acting as head of the posse, rather than a neutral chairman.
I yield to no one in my admiration for Dimbleby. A youthful 72, he is a peerless broadcaster and his performance during the last election was impeccable, even though he’d been on parade for four days and had to be running on empty.
When Gordon Brown finally realised he had run out of fingernails and was forced to drive to the Palace to tender his resignation, there was only one channel you wanted to watch it on, and only one presenter you wanted to hear describe it.
Actually, the best moments in Question Time are when a well-briefed Dimbleby interrupts the party political waffling and subjects a minister to direct forensic interrogation.
I’d rather see him present his own interview and analysis show, instead of acting as ringmaster in an increasingly irritating circus better suited to Jeremy Kyle.
Rather than uprooting a talented team of producers, the BBC should commission them to come up with a suitable new vehicle for Dimbleby and devise a programme which accurately reflects the wider views of the great British public.
As for the old Question Time carthorse, it should be led away to the glue factory.
By Richard Littlejohn
Last updated at 9:23 PM on 17th February 2011
There’s a simple solution to the angst over transferring production of Question Time to Glasgow: scrap the show altogether.
Forget the cost of upheaval and the perverse, bureaucratic idiocy of shifting what is supposed to be the BBC’s flagship political programme hundreds of miles away from Parliament.
Sadly, the plain truth is that Question Time should be put out of its misery. It is a relic of a more serious age, a carthorse in a cyberspace world. Every attempt to make it more ‘relevant’ only succeeds in making it look more ridiculous.
The show has been running for 32 years and is a prime candidate for euthanasia. And, no, this isn’t a conclusion I’ve reached lightly. Over the past 15 years, I’ve appeared on Question Time at fairly regular intervals.
It was always a privilege and occasionally a pleasure, such as the time I got to lock horns with the agitprop film-maker Michael Moore in Miami before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. These days when they ring up to invite me back, frankly I can’t be bothered. Why would I want to be on a show I hardly ever watch any more?
The rot started to set in when they increased the number of panellists and introduced the obligatory electronic interactive gimmicks.
David Dimbleby spends as much time reading out Twitter, Facebook and email addresses as he does taking questions. Debates have descended into soundbites.
Where once you got three politicians from the main parties, plus a journalist, industrialist or tame member of the Great and Good, now you are as likely to be confronted with a vacuous pop star or right-on comedian.
Weary format: Show has lost its edge - and controversially invited BNP leader Nick Griffin on last year
Weary format: Show has lost its edge - and controversially invited BNP leader Nick Griffin on last year
For me, Question Time lost all credibility when it wheeled out that ludicrous ‘cutting edge’ artist dressed as Little Bo Peep. Say what you like about Ken Livingstone, he never turned up in a Little Red Riding Hood costume.
Nowadays, the programme is as much about the audience as the panel. Question Time makes great play of coming from a different town or city every week, allegedly to celebrate the ‘diversity’ of the nation.
But each week, the studio audience looks exactly the same. At the end of every edition, Dimbleby invites viewers at home to apply for tickets for future shows. Trust me: don’t waste your time, particularly if you happen to be a Daily Mail reader.
The audience is always the same noxious, inarticulate blend of Left-wing local government activists, NHS malcontents, trades union officials, spotty students and women in headscarves. Occasionally, they throw in a couple of comedy Tories with dandruff, for the rest of the crowd to boo.
Last time I was on the programme, it came from Stevenage, Herts, where 93 per cent of the population is white, and which elected a Conservative MP in 2010 with 41.4 per cent of the vote.
Yet the audience looked as if it had been bussed in from central casting, carefully selected to reflect the BBC’s view of what Britain should look like. If 41.4 per cent of that audience were Conservative voters, they did a damn good job of disguising it.
I took one look at them and thought to myself: if this is a true representation of the people of Stevenage, then we really are all going to hell in a handcart.
Question Time pretends to be scrupulously impartial. But two editions in particular give the lie to this fiction. The first was the disgraceful episode two days after 9/11, which featured a baying, hate-filled mob insisting that America asked for it.
The second was the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin. I’m all for giving the BNP a good kicking, but this was a licence fee-funded lynching, with Dimbleby acting as head of the posse, rather than a neutral chairman.
I yield to no one in my admiration for Dimbleby. A youthful 72, he is a peerless broadcaster and his performance during the last election was impeccable, even though he’d been on parade for four days and had to be running on empty.
When Gordon Brown finally realised he had run out of fingernails and was forced to drive to the Palace to tender his resignation, there was only one channel you wanted to watch it on, and only one presenter you wanted to hear describe it.
Actually, the best moments in Question Time are when a well-briefed Dimbleby interrupts the party political waffling and subjects a minister to direct forensic interrogation.
I’d rather see him present his own interview and analysis show, instead of acting as ringmaster in an increasingly irritating circus better suited to Jeremy Kyle.
Rather than uprooting a talented team of producers, the BBC should commission them to come up with a suitable new vehicle for Dimbleby and devise a programme which accurately reflects the wider views of the great British public.
As for the old Question Time carthorse, it should be led away to the glue factory.